Social Precariousness and the European Pillar of Social Rights (original) (raw)
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The Bleak Future of European Union
Abstract The European Union (EU), which traced its origin from European Coal and Steel Community (ECSC) founded by pioneer 6 countries in 1952, has reached to 28 members as of 2014. Additionally, there are also 5 candidate countries waiting for the acceptance, and even some countries such as Israel, not located in the European continent, want to join the EU because the EU has grown so much that now it is the richest union in the world. However, even if the EU is the wealthiest union in the world, there emerged a lot of challenges to its unity. As it has reached 28 member states, it has also expanded to comprise a lot of different cultures as well as countries because the European continent does not only comprise one religion, one nation and one currency, but many religions, nations and currencies. Even though those differences are welcomed in the national level under the multiculturalism acts, they cause problems in the EU where nationalism is still alive in Europe. Therefore, no country wants the excellence of another over itself in the union. This essay will argue that supranational principles, monetary zone and debt crisis will challenge the unity of the EU in the next 50 years.
European Union: fears and hopes
Eastern Journal of European Studies, 2016
This contribution analyses some data from Eurobarometer 83, spring 2015, especially to draw a map of Fears. The European Union is a divided space and one of the main consequences of the budget (financial) crisis of Greece, followed by the crisis caused by the arrival of thousands of immigrants is an enhanced communication difficulty between the Western and Eastern parts of the EU But all citizens have some new rights with the European Citizenship, which are additional. One of the main issues for the future could be to change the fundamental basis of the Union, thus trying to organize a new articulation between local and supranational, with another role for States, for example to change the organisation of European elections, and to pursue the connection of public spaces with mobility.
The future of the European Union : demisting the debate
2020
Stefano Moncada (twitter @stefanomoncada) was born in Rome in 1976. He obtained his Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Malta, where he lectures and conducts research in the areas of development economics, climate change, European studies, island studies, sustainable development, and impact evaluation techniques. Stefano's recent research activities include economic and health assessments, in the face of climate change, of communities in Africa and Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Prior to joining academia, Stefano worked in the Italian Parliament as manager and policy analyst. He also worked as a consultant in several development projects based in Albania, Mexico, Mali and Ethiopia, mainly in relation to socioeconomic , health, and environmental funded activities. He has worked with the Malta Environment and Planning Authority (MEPA) as senior research officer, where he was in charge of the development of impact assessment tools. Stefano is also a member of the board of the Islands and Small States Institute of the University of Malta, and part of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Development and Training Institutes (EADI), of the Mediterranean Experts on Climate and Environmental Change (MedECC), and acts as expert reviewer for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). He is active in numerous outreach and knowledge-transfer initiatives, including training courses and consultation sessions for public, private, and Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs). Professor Roderick Pace is a resident academic staff member of the Institute for European Studies at the University of Malta. His research interests are in world politics and the EU, small states, Euro-Mediterranean relations, the international There seem two possible outcomes: either the EU's inertia and inability to grasp political nettles leads to an unsatisfactory business-as-usual approach, or there is disruptive reform. The former means the present frictions will persist and will probably be accentuated by widely projected stagnant economic growth. The latter course of reform might lance many boils of discontent, but would open up bitter re-negotiations over what it means to be European. The outer ring of countries no longer to be bound by the most unyielding of EU disciplines would be relegated to a different legal framework and all that this implies. These possibilities have not so far impinged greatly on public opinion. If and when they do so they will certainly stoke doubts over the value of the European 'project'. The background for many Europeans is security, and a sense that the EU is not delivering the stability and sense of foreign policy coherence they had been led to expect. The migration issue has been throwing into stark relief the volatilities of the Middle East, the Gulf region and northern Africa. It has shown how far from reality are Europe's foreign affairs ambitions. The EU's Common Foreign and Security Policy, in spite of its creation of a 'foreign ministry' in the shape of its EEAS action service, clearly remains much more a trade and economic arm than a diplomatic one. Successive opinion polls have shown that there is much support for a more muscular EU, with respondents apparently yearning for "a European army". As with so much of the Great Debate over Europe's future, such simple solutions would raise hugely complicated new questions over the political mechanisms that would be needed. In other words, Europe remains in the place its policymakers have always feared and denied: it is half-pregnant.
The European Union in the World � A Community of Values
Fordham International Law Journal, 2002
These are momentous times in Europe. The Euro has been successfully introduced, the enlargement negotiations are approaching their climax, and the European Convention ("Convention") is moving towards the drafting of a constitution for a new, continent-wide political entity. At the same time, unrest is manifest, particularly in two areas. On the one hand, many of our citizens, and not just the political elites, are dissatisfied with Europe's performance on the world stage and are concerned about the maintenance of peace and security within the Union. In these areas they would like to see a strengthened, more effective entity-"more Europe." On the other hand, their disenchantment with the long reach of European Union ("EU" or "Union") regulation in the first pillar area of economic policy is growing. The feeling of loss of local control over their destiny and a vague feeling of potential loss of identity within an ever more centralized polity is palpable. Here, they want "less Europe." In the outside world, change is also the order of the day. The ice-sheet of bipolarity, which overlaid and hid the complexity of international relations during the Cold War, is breaking up at an ever-increasing speed and revealing a world in which two paradigms are competing to become the underlying ordering principles for the new century. The traditional paradigm of interacting Nation States, each pursuing its own separate interests, with alliances allowing the small to compete with the large, is alive and well, and its proponents like Machiavelli or Churchill continue to be in vogue in the literature of international relations and the rhetoric of world leaders. At the same time, there is a school of thought which points to the growing economic and ecological interdependence of our societies and the necessity for new forms of global governance to complement national action. It is also becoming abundantly clear that the concept of a "Nation State" is often a fiction, positing as it does an identity between the citizens of a State and the members of a culturally homogenous society. For both reasons, the concept of the Nation State as the principal actor on the world stage, is called into question. The experience of the Union with the sharing of State sovereignty is clearly related to the second paradigm and also to the EU's firm support for the development of the United Nations ("U.N.") as well as other elements of multilateral governance. It would hardly be wise to suggest that any foreign policy, and certainly not that of the EU, should be based only on this paradigm. Given the recurrent threats to security, which seem to be part of the human condition expressed by some as the "inevitability of war"-the defense of territorial integrity; action against threats of aggression; and resistance to crimes against humanity such as genocide-the ability to conduct a security policy based much more on the old paradigm of interacting interests will continue to be required. That the EU needs to develop such a capability will be taken here as a given. Such a crisis-management capability will be essential to the Union, but will be distinguished here from the more long-term elements of foreign policy, which can be thought of as being designed to reduce the need for crisis management in the context of a security policy to a minimum. The crisis-management area of policy will not be treated further here. The thesis of this Essay is that the same set of political concepts can serve as a guide to the future internal development of the EU and as the basis of such a long-term foreign policy. Furthermore, it suggests that neither should be seen in terms of the balancing of interests but rather, as the expression of a small list of fundamental values. The list is as follows: (1) the rule of law as the basis for relations between members of society; (2) the interaction between the democratic process and entrenched human rights in political decision-making; (3) the operation of competition within a market economy as the source of increasing prosperity; (4) the anchoring of the principle of solidarity among all members of society alongside that of the liberty of the individual; (5) the adoption of the principle of sustainability of all economic development; and (6) the preservation of separate identities and the maintenance of cultural diversity within society. These values can be seen as the answer to the question posed both, by citizens of the Union and by our fellow citizens of the world: "What does the EU stand for?" In exploring these values we should, however, remember that in the real world there will be occasions on which Realpolitik will intrude and the interest-based paradigm will prevail.
Europe's existential crisis : Facing the Threats & Challenges
Publication du Centre de compétences Dusan Sidjanski en études européennes, 2018
The European Union is in a state of emergency. The crisis it is facing today is a global one, rather than merely sector-specific as in the past. It therefore requires a global response, in other words at a political level. This is the central message conveyed by this selection of texts. Having presented some of the main challenges, both internal and external, with which the Union is contending, the author maintains the need for a European political authority subject to democratic control, in particular with regard to currency, foreign, defence and security policy and migration. He puts forward the case for a federative core within the Eurozone which at first could take the form of “enhanced cooperation” between a certain number of countries favourable to the idea, while allowing other Member States the possibility to join them. He also stresses the need to break with aus- terity policies, a breeding ground for populism, and to promote solidarity as a guiding principle for future actions. As a result an unprecedented European federalism could be developed which would provide the European continent with the means to defend its values and to continue to play its part as a major peacekeeper in the 21st century.
The Crisis in the European Union?
Central and Eastern European Legal Studies, 2018
The article provides a conceptual framework for analyzing current discussions in crisis areas that appear on the international scene. The European Union is currently confronted with a number of challenges that have a major impact on its functioning. The primary problem seems to be a contradiction between the national and supranational principles. Some Member States are critical of the European Commission’s efforts to cumulate more and more decision-making powers on its hands and to exaggerate (or even absolutize) the supranational principle. This policy raises conflicts of competence between Brussels (primarily the European Commission) and some Member States, defending the national principle. This contradiction between the national and supranational principles is now taking up an ideological dimension, which seems to be one of the sources of the current European Union crisis. Its concrete manifestations are not only the rise of authoritarian attitudes of Hungary, but also the efforts of Hungary and Poland to strengthen the national principle. For this reason, there are also doubts about the functioning of the rule of law not only in Hungary and Poland, but also in the European Union as a whole. The criticism of the current political practice in Brussels is a sign that the European Union is facing the necessity of its reform. The aim of this article is to point out the reasons for the ideological crisis or the liberal crisis in the European Union.
2017
We need a clear-cut concept with regard to the social dimension of the EU: not a European Welfare State, but a European Social Union. Why is it necessary? First, monetary integration requires supranational stabilization instruments: stabilization implies risk-sharing and a ‘responsibility cut’. Moreover, there is a limit to the diversity of social models that can be accommodated in a monetary union. Hence, monetary integration forces upon its members a basic consensus on the social order it has to serve. The second reason why such a consensus is imperative refers to the need to reconcile free movement and domestic social cohesion. The EU must become a holding environment that allows Member States to be flourishing welfare states. What is exactly the agenda of a European Social Union? The agenda depends on normative choices. These choices have to reconnect with the point and purpose of the European project as it originally emerged, but not in an uncritical way. On a foundational level, reciprocity within and between member states is a key normative idea. On a practical level, we must reconsider the original division of labour envisaged by the European founding fathers, in which economic policy would be supranational and social policy national. KEYWORDS: European Social Union; monetary union; solidarity; social Europe